4 Indian bowlers who were called for suspect bowling action

Australia cruised to a 34-run win against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the first ODI of the series. While there were plenty of talking points from the hard-fought chase of Indians against the retro-clad Aussies, one particularly struck as out of the ordinary. It was Ambati Rayudu being reported for the suspect bowling action.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has been on the guard to strike out the bowlers with illegal action. As per the cricket authority, an illegal bowling action is where a player is throwing rather than bowling the ball. This is defined by the ICC as being where the player’s elbow extends by an amount of more than 15 degrees between their arm reaching the horizontal and the ball being released.

In 2014, ICC had a severe crackdown on the off-spinners and the likes of Saeed Ajmal, Sachithra Senanayake, Mohammad Hafeez, Marlon Samuels etc. were barred from bowling. While India has seemingly been steering away from the bowling controversies, there have been a similar few incidents recorded in the Indian cricket.

Here are five Indian bowlers whose bowling action was reported to be illegal.

#4 Harbhajan Singh

Harbhajan Singh

India’s highest wicket-taking off-spinner debuted for the country at the tender age of 18. Harbhajan’s bowling action was promptly under suspicion. Later in 1998, he reached Lord's to seek help from the former England offspinner, Fred Titmus. The Turbanator was cleared in just two days of remedial work. The bowler resumed and kept capturing wickets in a heap.

The ghosts of illegal action came back to haunt Harbhajan Singh seven years later. It was during the second Test between India and Bangladesh at Chittagong. The off-spinner’s usage of doosra came under the scanner of match umpires, Aleem Dar and Mark Benson, and the ICC match referee, Chris Broad.

There were unofficial reports suggesting an elbow flex of 22 degrees.

In 2005, Harbhajan Singh worked with biomechanics expert from Western Australia University and managed to get his action cleared from ICC. A clean chit from ICC resulted in India regaining it’s finest off-spinner.

#3 Pragyan Ojha

Pragyan Ojha often bowled in full sleeves

The 32-year old left-arm spinner from Odisha made his first-class debut in 2004-05. Representing Hyderabad, Pragyan Ojha started to show the glimpses of his talent in domestic cricket. In 2008, the left-arm spinner received India call-up and played his first ODI versus Bangladesh. Next year, Ojha made his Test and T20I debut for India.

Pragyan Ojha impressed with his performances in the IPL too. He remains the first and only spinner to win the purple cap which he earned in the IPL 3. However, in 2014, BCCI imposed a ban on Ojha following his suspect action.

In midst of the Ranji Trophy season, BCCI sent a letter to Hyderabad Cricket Association to disallow Ojha from bowling. The spinner was asked to undergo a rehabilitation program in Chennai.

Pragyan Ojha underwent the test in January 2015 and cleared it without any issues. He was allowed to bowl again. The Odisha spinner does still features in the domestic matches but has not played an IPL match since 2015.

#2 Shikhar Dhawan

Shikhar Dhawan was reported after bowling three overs

The most surprising name in the list of the bowlers is the marauding left-hand opening batsman from Delhi, Shikhar Dhawan. We all know Dhawan’s impeccable record as the batsman for India but he has a dubious bowling record. Observing his innocuous off-spinners against South Africa in a Test match, the match-officials reported Dhawan for a suspect action.

Before the eventful Delhi Test in 2015, Dhawan had delivered six overs across four Test matches. He never bowled for India in the limited overs. In this fourth Test of series, South Africa had to battle out 160 overs while chasing the impossible 481. To dislodge gritty South African batsmen, Virat eventually brought his part-time bowlers into the action.

Alongside Pujara, Kohli and Vijay, Dhawan bowled three overs. He returned with a maiden and nine runs coming from the remaining two overs. However, match officials expressed their concern over the legality of Dhawan’s bowling action in their match report to the ICC. The ICC launched further investigations into this matter. Dhawan has not bowled since.

#1 Ambati Rayudu

Ambati Rayudu

The most recent entrant into the list of suspect actions is Ambati Rayudu. The 33-year old Indian batsman became the frontrunner to bat at the disputed fourth spot for the upcoming World Cup. In absence of the part-timer Kedar Jadhav, Rayudu stepped up to bowl a few off-spinners in the fashion of Muralitharan. The move proved to be costly as the match officials expressed doubts over the action in their match report.

The Hyderabadi batsman had bowled for India before in the ODIs. In total, he had delivered 18 overs across seven ODIs in the year 2014 and 2015. Not long ago, he had bowled a single delivery in the Asia Cup when Hardik Pandya was unable to complete his over. Rayudu was brought into the attack in the first ODI between India and Australia at Sydney as Captain Kohli ran out of options.

Bowling like Murali, Rayudu conjured up the memories of the great off-spinner. Rayudu’s action straightaway caused doubtful reactions of the fans on the social media. After conceding boundaries in his second over, the off-spinner was taken off from the bowling attack by the captain.

He will now have to undergo testing within 14 days if he has to continue bowling in international cricket. It is more likely that we may not see Rayudu bowl again.